Road Trip 2008

I am going to work at a church in New Mexico for the summer. But before you hear more about that, let me tell you about the crazy ride there. I left from San Antonio because Jonny Collins got married last weekend and I got to sing in his wedding. Oh and just for an aside here, Ryan Odonnel is a flippin stud musician instrumentally and vocally. I absolutely loved getting to sing with him and totally look forward to the next time we can jam together. OK, back to the story.

So I left at 3:30am and drove up I-10 for a long time and was going to turn North when I got to Fort Stockton. Well as I am driving past these really really cool windmill farms in west Texas that create electricity I come within about 30 miles of Fort Stockton and then I see two older Hispanic men on the side of the street and its obvious that they've have a flat or blowout. As I approach them they are practically jumping into the freeway to flag someone down for help. So being the good guy I am I think real quick if I should stop or not and I think about how we are in the middle of no where and these old guys need some help and it's daylight now, it's actually 7:45 in the morning.

So I stop and quickly find out that they don't speak much English at all. Actually only one of them could speak any English at all so I could make out that he wanted me to take one of them into Fort Stockton to get their blown out tire fixed. They had a spare on the van but it was flat too. So I think about it and it seems fine that I'm going through Fort Stockton anyway so I tell ok, I'll take him in. So they throw the dirty blown out tire on top of all my stuff that's packed into my trunk and we were on our way. It wasn't until we got a few miles down the road that I have the thought about how this guy's gonna get back to his van on the freeway. I guess he could hitchhike back but we'll cross that bridge later. Well we had a bit of a drive ahead of us and apparently my little friend who didn't speak a word of English was a bit tired cause I looked over and he was conked out next to me.

We finally pull up into Fort Stockton and I quickly realize that because it's Sunday morning and it's not even 9am, we're gonna have a hard time finding a tire place but I drive through town a little ways anyway with hopes. I eventually turn around and head back towards the interstate and stop to ask for advice from the locals. They tell us of a place called "Johnny's" behind some gas station across the interstate so we set out over there and find it. We get there and I ask the lady behind the counter if they speak Spanish and she says yes so I let my little buddy talk to her about his needs and then a random guy that was in there chimed in and started talking to us too. I leave those three to talk it out and I go use the restroom. By the time I return it appears that things have been worked out and we are ready to go get the tire fixed at this place behind this gas station. So me the Mexican man walk back towards my car which is parked right in front of the tire garage and then I see that random guy from inside walk out with a women toward us. I naturally assume they are coming to unlock the tire shop and fix us up. Well they get to my car and begin to pile in the backseat and so I asked where we goin? And this guy wants to go back to the van on the interstate with us with a can of FIX-A-FLAT. Apparently they don't have a car but wanted to help out. So we all set back out on I-10 going back the direction I've already come from by about 30 miles. So I'm thinking about the time I'm losing because I decided to be nice and stop, so I'm driving like 90mph in hopes to speed this ordeal up. The lady is chain smoking in the back seat and looking through all my seat pockets and whatever she can find. I'm thinkin, why in the world did I ever stop. This is a classic Curtis scenario here. We finally arrive at the busted van and we pile out and this lady's gotta go to the bathroom. So she sets off a little ways up the interstate to do her business and her husband starts pumpin the FIX-A-FLAT into the flat spare tire on the van. When the lady returns she strikes up a random conversation about her two daughters and starts telling me that one of them looks like Madonna and the other looks like Christina Aguilara and they both sing real good and that they get it from her cause she goes around and sing Amy Grant gospel sometimes. Then she tells me about a black girl in town that she thinks I'd like. (Why do people do that?)

Well the flat fixer stuff didn't work because the seal on the rim was broken so they wanted to get more FIX-A-FLAT from another gas station that was just a couple miles away and of course that didn't ever work so guess what... All five of us are out on I-10 with the busted van (Did I tell you earlier that the two Mexican men were a Mariachi band traveling from San Antonio to who knows where)


So now the tire guy wants to send me back to Fort Stockton with the tire and the Mexican guy and his wife. His wife gets in the front seat and says "I'm gonna sit in the front seat cause my legs are long and I can't be crawl in the back seat... (pause, as she looks out the window at her husband) "I don't trust this situation, I used to be a 'Military Marine' and if anyone can handle this kinda stuff it's me." So she starts getting out of the car and then I tell the guy that we should probably take the flat spare into his tire shop and just fix it. So they get the spare of the van and get it in my trunk and now the original riders pile back into my little cougar already packed down with all my stuff for the summer and we're back on the road to Fort Stockton. I had the windows rolled down because the combination of smells need to be aired out of my car but then on the second trip back into Fort Stockton, it began to get hot so I turned on the AC but then the tire guy/husband lights up a cigarette and the lady says "can you crack the window just a lil..little bit, we're kinda smokers." They'd been like ultra chain smoking since we met.

I figure that since these peeps are in my car and some of them can understand English, I could go ahead and share the good news with them. So I begin telling them about JC and then the lady chimes in with "oh yesss, I believe God is all around us and He's in me and all around like the sun....You know I'm in my second life now... When I walked off that balcony in Beaumont I felt like a cloud caught me and I knew it was God...It was like His hand just reached down and caught me...I thought it was weird that when I came back, I came back to the same family... I used to be Martinez and then I was in a Martinez family..."
By this point I kinda felt like I wasn't gettin too far with my gospel presentation so we just rode along until we got back into town. The tire directs me to a different place this time and we role up to a different tire shop. He jumps out of the car and raises the garage door on this shop and starts fixing on this tire and I just about lost it. I was thinking, why in the world didn't we just come here in the first place two and a half hours ago. This was a real tire shop that had everything he needed to fix any kind of tire problem. So I say, are you all good here? I've gotta get back on the road? The tire guy says, "yeah you've done enough, we can find a way to get him back to his van." And even though I was a little worried about my little Mexican mariachi friend, I didn't care enough to stick around any longer. He Mariachi guy gave me 20 bucks for my time and I was on my way, not fully believing that I'd burned up two and a half hours of my road trip on this craziness. So the moral of the story is to not pick up stranded people, I guess. Or not if your name is Curt Hampton anyway.